Behind Blue Eyes
by Karrah Aretz
Summary: not everything is hunky-dory with one blond boy. a Maureen song-fic, if you take offense, it is your own fault.


Behind Blue Eyes  
By Maureen  
  
Music and lyrics by The Who, characters are Disney's, idea is mine and money is not.  
***  
  
No one knows what it's like  
To be the bad man  
To be the sad man  
Behind blue eyes  
  
Kenny headed home, only a few doors down from Jamie's house, the flickering street lights his only companionship. His 'friends', the other bleacher junkies, had long deserted him. They had gone home for supper, to work, to the movies. Anywhere but where he was. So he had sat for hours by the side of the road, smoking the cigarettes he had paid a guy in college to buy him, wishing his life were different.  
  
He closed the screen door quietly, trying not to disturb his mother, passed out on the couch, the TV still flickering in the darkness. Her hand still clutched the bottle of half-drunk whiskey. Empty bottles were littered around her like sacrifices to a goddess. A very inebriated goddess.   
  
For a moment he thought to try to take the bottle, to drink the remaining liquid himself. At the very least it would make the pain go away...for a little while. 'Alcohol', he thought sardonically, 'helping ugly people have sex since 1850.'  
  
Or at least make their problems seem insubstantial for a little while. As he approached the couch, his mother stirred, murmuring something unintelligible. Kenny decided not to take the bottle for fear she would wake up. Instead he headed to the kitchen, taking one of his stepfather's beers from the fridge. He wouldn't notice.  
  
No one knows what it's like  
To be hated  
To be fated  
To telling only lies  
  
But my dreams  
They aren't as empty  
As my conscience seems to be  
  
His...fifth stepfather. Who knew where his real father was now. He used to see him every Sunday when he was little, now he didn't even know if they were in the same state. Of course, it wasn't a picnic seeing him. He was always fawning over some young whore half his age, marrying them, getting them pregnant and then leaving them. Like he had done to Kenny's mother. Who knew how many stepmothers he had had over the years, how many 1/2 siblings. He never knew and had stopped keeping track after the first two. There may even have been some before him, older, but he didn't know. He didn't care.  
  
He settled on his bed, beer in hand, and remote in the other. He wanted to get out of this dump. He wanted to be free from the squalor that was his life. But he knew he would never get out. He was too old, it was too late. At 16 his life was already predetermined. He would die here. Surrounded not by family and friends, but by enemies and bitter regrets of deeds he never should have done. Like climbing that god-forsaken water tower. Or forcing Jamie Waite to steal the guitar picks.   
  
I have hours, only lonely  
My love is vengeance  
That's never free  
  
No one knows what it's like  
To feel these feelings  
Like I do  
And I blame you  
  
Jamie Waite. The bastard. It wasn't fair. Kenny had persuaded him to 'liberate' the guitar picks, and Jamie had been caught. Now though, his community service was HELPING him to get out. He was going to be an EMT, a paramedic...he was going to make it somewhere else all because Kenny had forced him to steal and he was caught. And Kenny was still stuck.  
  
If that wasn't enough, he had climbed the water tower on Halloween, to prove some macho-testosterone whoknowswhat to Jamie. And Jamie had to call 911 and save him. Jamie saved him. The rat-bastard. Why couldn't he have let him die?  
  
No one bites back as hard  
On their anger  
None of my pain and woe  
Can show through  
  
But my dreams  
They aren't as empty  
As my conscience seems to be  
  
Making a face, Kenny swallowed a sip of beer. It was Fosters, the crappiest beer ever. "Exported from Australia because the Aussie's can't stand it!" he crowed to himself. For some reason it made him feel better. At least his parents couldn't export him to another country because they didn't like him. Correction: they had never thought of it. They probably would have if they could have.  
  
It was a wholly depressing feeling knowing that he was unwanted, unloved, uncared about by anyone. He took another sip of beer in the hope he would be able to dull the pain, just like his mother did.  
  
Idly he pulled his butterfly knife from his pocket. He never went anywhere without it, after all, if he couldn't protect himself, no one would help him. He amused himself, flipping the knife in and out of its built-in casing. If he did it wrong he would cut himself. Cut himself...what a novel idea. Not in it's uniqueness, but it would dull the pain inside of him, override it with a physical pain. Someone once said that the only way to combat mental pain was with physical. The idea might have some merit. Of course, there was always the suicide option. With a knife as sharp as his it would be simple, only a few short strokes and soon everything would be over.   
  
With a shudder Kenny rejected both of these ideas, he was a bully, a petty schoolyard tyrant with an iron fist; however, he was not into inflicting pain on himself. He inflicted pain on others and enjoyed it. He was a sadist, not a masochist.  
  
I have hours, only lonely  
My love is vengeance  
That's never free  
  
When my fist clenches, crack it open  
Before I use it and lose my cool  
When I smile, tell me some bad news  
Before I laugh and act like a fool  
  
He cracked his bedroom door open slightly. His mother had not moved, the TV still flickered. Good. He crept into the kitchen and took more beer. He was going to keep drinking until his pain dulled or until he died of alcohol poisoning. In the back of his mind he had the sinking feeling that he would die first.   
  
On his way back to his bedroom he stopped in the small bathroom. It was the only one in the house. After doing his business he rummaged through the medicine cabinet, not really looking for anything but hoping he might find something useful. Aspirin wasn't very useful...but it would do.   
  
If I swallow anything evil  
Put your finger down my throat  
If I shiver, please give me a blanket  
Keep me warm; let me wear your coat  
  
No one knows what it's like  
To be the bad man  
To be the sad man  
Behind blue eyes  
  
Almost an entire bottle no less. His lucky day. After all, didn't aspirin dull pain? Make pain go away? It said it did right on the label! Even with a slight buzz he could read that. Well, he had a big pain inside, bigger than big, huge. It was eating him alive. He popped two aspirin, swallowed them with some beer. Two wasn't enough to get rid of the pain. Two more.   
  
Two more.  
  
Two more.  
  
More beer.   
  
More beer.   
  
He kept taking the small white pills one after another until the bottle was empty and he could take no more. After a few minutes he began to feel shaky. More beer. Beer would make everything better. So would sitting. His eyes stared blankly at the shower wall. It was brown. He dimly remembered that it was supposed to be white. White. Pretty shiny new white...he dropped his beer. 


End file.
